r. Steel is often used for the sword
(as in v. 239 below: "foeman worthy of their steel"), the figure being
of the same sort as here--"the material put for the thing made of it."
Cf. v. 479 below.

117. Embossed. An old hunting term. George Turbervile, in his Noble Art
of Venerie or Hunting (A.D. 1576), says: "When the hart is foamy at the
mouth, we say, that he is emboss'd." Cf. Shakespeare, T. of S. ind. 1.
17: "Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd;" and A. and C. iv. 13.
3:

"the boar of Thessaly
Was never so emboss'd."

120. Saint Hubert's breed. Scott quotes Turbervile here: "The hounds
which we call Saint Hubert's hounds are commonly all blacke, yet
neuertheless, the race is so mingled at these days, that we find them
of all colours. These are the hounds which the abbots of St. Hubert haue
always kept some of their race or kind, in honour or remembrance of the
saint, which was a hunter with S. Eustace. Whereupon we may conceiue
that (by the grace of God) all good huntsmen shall follow them into
paradise."

127. Quarry. The animal hunted; another technical term. Shakespeare uses
it in the sense of a heap of slaughtered game; as in Cor. i. 1. 202:

"Would the nobility lay aside their ruth,
And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry
With thousands of these quarter'd slaves," etc.

Cf. Longfellow, Hiawatha:

"Seldom stoops the soaring vulture
O'er his quarry in the desert."

130. Stock. Tree-stump. Cf. Job, xiv. 8.

133. Turn to bay. Like stand at bay, etc., a term used when the
stag, driven to extremity, turns round and faces his pursuers. Cf.
Shakespeare, 1. Hen. VI. iv. 2. 52, where it is used figuratively (as in
vi. 525 below):

"Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel,
And make the cowards stand aloof at bay;"

and T. of S. v. 2. 56: "'T is thought your deer does hold you at a bay,"
etc.

137. For the death-wound, etc. Scott has the following note here: "When
the stag turned to bay, the ancient hunter had the perilous task of
going in upon, and killing or disabling, the desperate animal. At
certain times of the year this was held particularly dangerous, a
wound received from a stag's horn being then deemed poisonous, and more
dangerous than one from the tusks of a boar, as the old rhyme testifies:

'If thou be hurt with hart, it bring thee to thy bier,
But barber's hand will boar's hurt heal, therefore thou
need'st